Developer Diary Feedback: Revisiting the Mines of Moria (First Half)

[Anelei]

Moria is an acquired taste, everyone who's been there more than couple of times learned how to appreciate its complexity and beauty, especially if one considers that the leveling after Moria is easier, much easier and less time-demanding. Somehow I always had a feeling that the game had its peak of excellence in Moria area. True, many people don't like it but I don't believe that this is the reason why they're doing the revamp. Frankly, it will be fun to have some changes just for the sake of change, and whatever people say it really doesn't matter, because the devs will implement whatever they want. The reason for this is exactly the feeling that you're struggling through Moria and afterwards it is much easier, even in Isengard (which is supposed to be a place of horror and fear, more wicked than Moria). The game should contain more dangerous and intimidating places and mobs with every expansion as we get closer to Mordor. Currently this is not the case so they decided to tune up some things. We'll see quite soon how it will look like and we can just hope for the best!

[Brethwyn_EU]

I remember when Mines of Moria was released, people were already then complaining about too much light. And I agreed then, and I agree now. It's meant to be a dark and cruel place where you have to watch your every step for falling down a chasm. Moria is meant to be packed with orcs "and fouler things", not dwarves. I admit a couple of scattered expeditionary camps would be okay, but from what I've read they're way too packed and streamlined.

I will go check Moria out, but I'm not so sure I'm gonna like it much. I'd rather you focus on new content like getting the Mounted Combat technology to work properly. Or if that's already done with, do housing. Or LI revamp. Or something. Streamlining is not a good idea if you want to build a immersive world. On the other hand, it's very good if you want someone to click their way through quests without reading the description and the story you have spent so much time on.

Okay. Before I say more, I will need to check it out myself

[MithrielWielder]

This is continuing the trend of destroying old game content that is perfectly good. In this case, Moria was some of the best and original content out there. You could have spent that development time on something useful, like reclaiming some of the previously destroyed game content by converting instances to scalable instances. So now Moria takes longer to get through because you changed everything around and closed off paths from one area to the next. Those that complained about Moria still won't go there, and those that liked it will no longer have access to what we liked. Stop changing the game. I don't even feel like going here anymore. And since there are four times more quests in the game now than anyone needs to level, I could easily skip the entirety of Moria. At the very least please unblock the tunnels that have been blocked up, that is just going to make travelling take longer and be more frustrating, especiailly for people that remember them being there and are unaware of the change. This is just bad, very bad. I guess I could take my 65 champ here that I havn't played for a year since they messed up all the skills and then I could be doubly frustrated not knowing any of my character's skills and not knowing my way around on the ground either. Afterall, I have unlimited time to relearn the same areas and the same skills over and over again.

[Laerien]

Ok I visited Bullroarer and Moria.

I'm not fully agree with the new quest structure, I'm feeling old, from an age when videogame players used to have brain. But times seem are different, people need to be guided.

Since we'll have to live with it and there's no turn back, the only thing that can fix this is turn off the light again. I mean seriously, the excesive lighting is almost against the lore. Maybe in other game this would look fantastic, but not Lotro, not in Moria.

[Gondalen_Drake]

you shouldnt "revamp" good areas , you should revamp the F2P and Shop!!!

[LotRO-Chris]

I don't think that it is because it is hard for most people but because of how Moria tries to send you everywhere at the same time and they don't want to deal with it so they get in as late as possible and leave as early as possible to spend as little time as possible inside Moria.

This is the closest to the way it seems to me.

Having to constanly run all over various sections of a huge maze, getting sent to places that are paved with long fights, then back again is a major PITA. It makes XP come in spurts, where you feel like you're making no progress at all, and when you do, it is just a little push, like a jerky transmission

I actually like Moria & think it is an attractive place, but I hate the way the the quest "flow" feels as tedious as the Northcotton Farm errand-monkey quests, but with constant combat interruptions.

Even if the reworking of the area doesn't affect the speed of leveling, just making it feel smoother would be a welcome change.

UPDATE: I should note, I like the dark spooky feel of the place, I like having to "watch out for that first step", I like how you might get into a situation where you're being chased by a mob of orcs... I'm not certain I like the idea of a "well lit" area, with the exception of the Flaming Deeps...

[sensyi]

I want at least one part of Moria to be a 6man group area that is overcrowded with goblins, if it was up to me Moria should have NO safe paths I mean its Moria!!! even if the goblins are like 600 morale strong there should be 10 or 20 of them after you not 1-3 at a time at the most.

Moria should make you feel as if you are fighting for your life every second your there.

Can someone explain why the 21st hall has no goblins? i mean the feel of the area should be that your encampment is being attacked all the time.

[Kamco]

Hmm, my main concern with Moria was that there were too many quests and most of them were following same pattern:
1. go to area A, scout it, report back
2. go back to area A, kill 10 mobs, report
3. once again go to area A, kill boss B/pick up some item near boss B, report
all this through whole zone map preferably, repeat it like 100 times and you have 70% of quests in Moria, i would rather take less quests, but better done (you can always rise exp you get from one quest, i prefer quality over quantity).


Little off topic, i dont understand this obsession of todays developers (not just Turbine) with how many quests they can produce. Whats the point of having 3000 quests when there is no fun in doing them (as they are boring and have total lack of creativity in them) and ppl just do them for the sake of lvling, not for the sake of "being on quest". Isnt it better to have 300 quest but better, creative, dynamic, with real "quest" feel in them? End of rant.

[Hurin]

Moria should make you feel as if you are fighting for your life every second your there

. . . except this would run far more counter to the "lore" than anything Turbine has done (with the exception of making it entirely too bright/well-lit, especially now).

The Fellowship was almost able to travel from the West Gate all the way to the Dimrill Dale without encountering a single Orc (or anything else). They might have indeed made it through without incident had a "fool of a Took" not done something, well, foolish.

Moria is vast and largely deserted. Especially on the Western side.

Best,

H

P.S. I care far less about what they do to the quests. . . but I'd really like them to restore the dynamic lighting to the Great Delving and otherwise make Moria as dark as it should be (or at least not brighten it!).

[Norwrei]

Personally I thought Moria was perfect. I've done every single quest, deed and instance in Moria. I don't think it was too challenging. I hate that you want to make it easier. LOTRO has become too easy in my opinion with the exception of Orthanc raids T2. Especially too easy for lower levels.. too too too easy to level up. I would like to see more scaling done on the older content and yes more level caps because it's always fun to go higher in level but please do not make it easier. For next level cap, make it more difficult to level so it takes awhile.

PS Another suggestion that I think would be great is that mobs always attack us regardless of what level we are. This would make middle-earth a lot more interesting to be attacked wherever we go.. including ered luin and breeland. :-)

[Xhiu]

I hate Moria. I loathe Moria.

Is it too hard? Well no. If that were the only reason I'd go in there and try to stand up to the challenge. Is it too dark? No, again. Its not supposed to be well lit, like the Shire. Is it a long way to go for nothing? Pretty much. I am one of the people who get to level 46, do the epic to get my first Legendary Items then go anywhere other than Moria if I can help it. I would rather go to Lothlorien at level 55 and run arrows and Orc filth than try to find the west side of the Bridge of KD.

Notice I said 'find'. Do I need a direct path to something? Usually, you have one, on the radar. Problem with that is, especially in Moria, you can usually depend on the fact that is is probably the worst way to get somewhere. In Moria that means dropping into a large hole. In other places walking around mountains or swimming in a lake that never ends. I find it odd that nobody I've ever talked to hated to swim Lake Evendim yet Moria lovers see no problem in walking miles out of their way to drop off a letter because there is no map that says, "Don't go that way because there is a wall there. Go around it into another game and back so you can end up about 30 feet from where you started." I don't find walking across any large areas an enjoyable pastime.

By adding quest hubs, or mini hubs, in between the old zones you put some interest in the movement between sections of the area. You can't tell me that there are that many people who like walking around from one place to another in Moria. If that was the case there would be no need for stables. You could walk to your hearts content stumbling over this orc or that bug.

Is this sanitizing the area? Does this mean you are going to lose the gritty feel? Perhaps. Complain about it after you have gone through it, imo. I still cant find my way from Dolven View to the 21st without a seeing eye dog, a map, a compass, a boy scout, and bread crumbs.

Here is the big reason I am not complaining about the revamp, although I, too am afraid of the 'sanitizing'. When Moria was first introduced there was nothing beyond it. You had to run around and find things and had plenty of time to do so since level 60 was as far as you could go, you had LI to get and break, and you could always find (subjectively) people in the higher level range still doing content there. New players, or I should say newer players, don't have that luxury. How often do you run GS now? Then? If you were to make a toon now to run through Moria you already know the zone so you don't have to look for anything. You don't need the year, which you had when it was released, to explore, rather practice, the entire zone.

I lost internet access for about a year, a month after Moria was released. I didnt have a level 45 (not that I knew you could start Vol 2 at 45 then) to even get close to Moria and the rest of my kinship at that time. When I came back people were preparing for Mirkwood. What I heard in vent around that time were people complaining about having to run the same instances over and over and over again which meant that wasn't going to happen for me. I, and people in a similar situation, was going to have to catch up and that means #### of Moria asap so you ca do the fotm instance. Those of you who knew moria did not have to take time to learn it.

tl;dr

I don't like Moria because it is no longer an end game area and as such you need to run through it not stick around and smell the orcses.

side note: I don't like the newer zones gated communities. This is not the real housewives of OC so we shouldn't have to find someone with a gate key to finish quest lines and move to the next hub. I do like the linear progression as I get too many unfinished quests without it but I do not like getting stuck in one area, unable to move forward because I cant get a particular quest finished. i.e. I am struggling with my hunter on v3b5 for some reason. I can't move onto book 6 until I figure out why. Fortunately, I can still do the landscape quests in the GR. But my hunter has several areas of quests still opened because there is no epic for me to follow. (yes, I do have a couple other toons that are on the straight and narrow.)

[Xhiu]

Hmm, my main concern with Moria was that there were too many quests and most of them were following same pattern:
1. go to area A, scout it, report back
2. go back to area A, kill 10 mobs, report
3. once again go to area A, kill boss B/pick up some item near boss B, report
all this through whole zone map preferably, repeat it like 100 times and you have 70% of quests in Moria, i would rather take less quests, but better done (you can always rise exp you get from one quest, i prefer quality over quantity).


Little off topic, i dont understand this obsession of todays developers (not just Turbine) with how many quests they can produce. Whats the point of having 3000 quests when there is no fun in doing them (as they are boring and have total lack of creativity in them) and ppl just do them for the sake of lvling, not for the sake of "being on quest". Isnt it better to have 300 quest but better, creative, dynamic, with real "quest" feel in them? End of rant.

I agree. Running to a spot and seeing the majesty the first time is an ooooh ahhhh moment. The 300th time you have to do it is an arrrrgh moment. And in Moria it is easy to get lost or walk off a ledge, after fighting the same camp of goblins for the 300th time. A game should not be tedious. I'm hoping the revamp has relocated the tedium and frustration for me.

re: off topic...
This are the same people that drew constant crowds to Bree for the Anniversary festival. Whoever did the fireworks and invitation quests needs a raise.

[Eckenbrand]

Hey, Devs, fix the weapon bouncing. It's annoying and causing extra unneeded animation.

[Downing]

I've not read other comments in this thread, but I wanted to make comment on the destruction of Moria update.

You've entirely sucked the fun out of the place! I have an alt who was part way through Moria when this awful update landed. Apart from the bugs and major lighting problems, the quest progression appears to be aimed at eight year olds with learning difficulties - there is absolutely no effort or intelligence required any more, and you appear to have forced linearity on us.

For example, Sheet Music / Badgers as Shepherds quests East of Jazargund used to take a lot of care not to aggro way more than you can handle, now you can wander around the area and aggro absolutely nothing. Even when you do it's a single swarm mob archer you can 1 shot. Killing the ambassadors is now ludicrously easy as you never aggro more than just him. No need for foods, potions, care, preparation, just walk, kill, hand in. ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

In general you've forgotten to put any monsters back in the game - the roads are empty - maybe the occasional token mob who is (it seems) always in an area where you can get past without aggro.

You've taken out the Mirror quest repeatables - they were useful for keeping up with morale pots. Mind I guess there's little need for any Morale pots in the new Moria now.

I was loving questing Moria again, I persevered for today, but no, now I'm off out into Lothlorien early. Sorry, the revamped Moria is utterly pathetic. It doesn't make sense any more.

Oh, and why do the new swift travel routes not need progression via rep or deed? Come to that, why swift travel only?

I guess it's in keeping with the new Eriador and Rhovanion maps - now horribly drawn in crayon by a five year old.

As the revamped Fornost instance has awful loot and lousy mark drop rate, you've turned an obsolete instance no one ran into four instances no one will run.

The worst update in my time in Lotro.

[Wodholm]

I completely agree with Downing. Its true that there was some disjunction in the non-epic questlines, so its fine to streamline those a bit. I'm sure all of us did get frustrated the third or fourth time we had to go back to the same mob for yet one more quest item. There's no harm in giving us "scout a, scout b, and kill the boss and then collect item x" all at the same time. However, pulling the mobs off the paths was a dumb thing to do. It is now a real snooze to run anything in Durin's Way--and if you do its likely hardly more than a one shot. Moria is supposed to be "a dungeon crawl" not a cake walk! As far as the lore goes, the fellowship got as far as they did because they were trying not to "aggro" anything. We heroes, on the other hand, are there to clear it out! For the record, I went into Moria on my first toon around 45, completely bypssing Eregion, and didn't leave until about 62! So, Devs, bear in mind that there are probably a significant amount of us who had no problem with Moria the way it was! ...End of rant. Have fun in Middle-Earth all!

[Chanah]

Always hated Moria, so I have to agree that no matter what you do, it's not going to make the people who dislike it - like it.

I quit for two years when it was endgame because it just wasn't a fun place to spend time, and I like games to be entertaining - challenge can be entertaining, but for me, Moria was always the epitome of tedium, not challenge. Outside of an instance, I don't think I've ever had a toon die to a mob in Moria save for intentional suicide to get from somewhere some quest sent me way far away back to the rally circle at 21st Hall or the like.

In other words, it is not, nor was it ever, particularly dangerous. Just really annoying to have to kill nine thousand trivial mobs on your way to and from every single quest. Only to have to go back to the same place four times, and chances are - you'll spend frustrating hours trying to find it if nobody's put something on the Net with directions. You can do that once in a while, and I know Turbine loves mazes, but in Moria it is overdone, especially with the maps so utterly lacking.

I'm severely visually impaired, which doesn't help. Pretty expert with computers, and LoTRO graphic settings - the only areas of LoTRO that have never worked for me no matter what I do were Moria (especially when the personal lighting and ambient light slider were both broken) and the Tuck skirmish - nothing made those visible enough to not be a major aggravation, though I realise I'm in the minority here, but one thing I do like about LoTRO is that it's pretty friendly to disabled folks.

Even I am shaking my head over the neon orange in the Silvertine Lodes, but I can live with it.

I like the little settlements of quest givers. One of my big dislikes about Moria is that there's no way a bunch of dwarfs would have settled it to the degree they have a week after the fellowship went through but ah well. The little camps are kind of neat, feel more organic, and I for one appreciate that I no longer have to trudge miles to get from point A to point B four times straight.

Since it was never dangerous to quest in Moria, I can't see how this took any 'danger' away from it.

There's definitely some good in the update.

The bad: What did you do to my quest log and the as far as I know not revamped Waterworks? All that was left in it were two quests to turn in there, but the quest givers are MIA to the toon that needs to do it. They are not MIA to a level capped toon I took over to the Rotting Cellar - they're right there. I'm not sure what's going on with that.

People who have six to ten hours per session to play and who love the old school type of gaming love Moria. I'm sorry it's getting ruined for them. Those of us who don't have that kind of time and don't care for old school grind and tedium are never going to like the place. I can't see that ever changing, and I know that there's not going to be another level 50 area, so it's always going to be a compromise.

I think the thing that really needs the most work is the epic. We are all forced to do that, it's long, extremely boring and a huge timesink - please reserve those for endgame, not mid-game.

At the very least, make the swift travel between Chamber of Crossroads and the 21st Hall permanent.

I'll still do the into Moria at 54, out to Nandurion at 55 or 56, epic as I can stomach it. I suspect most other folks who do it that way will continue to do it that way. But there was some good in the update, and for that, I thank you.

[Chanah]

this is one thing that really annoys me about the Great River region, which I otherwise love, that the explorer deed is basically autocompleted just by doing quests. that is very unfortunate IMO

At first I would have agreed with you on this. But virtues have gone up to 14, and if you have melee toons especially, there are only so many 'kill 450' deeds you can take before you start going bonkers.

IOW, I really appreciate having a few easy virtues at end-game as well as early game considering how awful most of the ones in the middle are, especially when you're doing them for the fifth or sixth time + having a minimum of 20 more virtue slots to fill in the space of a few months. I'd like to see the whole concept of virtues reworked into something less grindy, but as that's not likely to ever happen, I appreciate that some of the grind is gone from the later ranks.

[Vilan]

Just finished running all the new Moria quests. Some thoughts, in no particular order.

Blocking off tunnels. Sigh. If you're trying to play linearly, you wouldn't have gone wandering down them to begin with. If you're not playing linearly, well, you are now.

Didn't particularly notice the lighting. In a few places, yeah, mostly in Silvertine Lodes. But I can live with it.

Many task boards now. This is good, Moria needs them. I'm too high level to see what they are, but thanks for putting them in. This goes for the ability to barter rep items for one faction for the other too. Not sure if that was added in this update or previously, but that's helpful.

Speaking of rep, there's a quest where you discover mithril to the great excitement of all and sundry. And you get like 500 rep. This is a massive discovery for the dwarves, you should get more like 5000 rep. I know they don't hand out that much rep at once, but it's a bit jarring to get the same rep as you do for killing a few goblins.

The guys outside the resource dungeons now let you barter resource tokens for boxes of specific crafting material. This is a nice bonus, better than getting random stuff. I don't know how much you get from those boxes, but it could hardly be less than you get from the cache, so this is all good.

Why is there a free goat from Zirakzigil to Fanged Pit? This is not an especially popular route. And anyway there's a stablemaster right there, just have him offer swift travel. Not sure why this was done.

Speaking of stables, they added one to the Vile Maw, along with a healer and provisioner. No idea why, since there's no need to go to the entrance to do Watcher. In 2008 this would've been handy... why it was done now, dunno.

The globsnaga camp in Waterworks has been much expanded. This is kinda nice, makes the globsnaga presence feel more significant. And the fungus quest from the Palace of Nain was a neat way of starting people worrying about fungus.

Overall, I give it a C+. The task boards are helpful, but the new quests aren't terribly interesting and the linearization of gameplay is rather tiresome.

[Viva_La_Vida]

I've liked the new additions to moria the extra quests better rewards ect but the thing that bothers me is that yeah they've removed rep req for the tame goat but for those that have already done the quest have to pay 5g for it stil is kinda robbing us of a goat the least you can do is either lower the price or get rid of it to make it fair.

[Chanah]

One nice thing is that some of the quest rewards are actually useable as gear now if you're the right class.

Still struggling with the disappearing NPCs in the Waterworks, who are available to my level capped toons, but invisible to the toon that needs to turn in the quests to them - arrgghh.

And if Waterworks was revamped, it may explain why I'm having so much trouble finding the plaques on this toon for the epic quest. I'm pretty much playing in Loth now on that toon as he's 58, but I would've liked to have turned in the Waterworks quests while they still grant some XP and get a bit more of the epic done with him.

[Nickysmom]

J

Why is there a free goat from Zirakzigil to Fanged Pit? This is not an especially popular route. And anyway there's a stablemaster right there, just have him offer swift travel. Not sure why this was done.

Speaking of stables, they added one to the Vile Maw, along with a healer and provisioner. No idea why, since there's no need to go to the entrance to do Watcher. In 2008 this would've been handy... why it was done now, dunno.

There is a quest line that you start in the Fanged Pit but is continued at Zirakzigil, so a goat has been provided to take you from the Fanged Pit to Zirakzigil and the from Zirakzigil back to the Fanged Pit to turn in. These two goats are available only for that particular quest line.

The healer and provisioner at the Vile Maw are most likely there to service players doing landscape quests in that area.

[Manouille]

I had stopped lotro a few months agos, mainly because I was fed up with Moria and the so long questing involved (especially in the waterworks). The new quest lines are mostly well done, a tad too linear but at least allowing exploration without having to spend hours of walking on the same tracks destroying trash mobs.

However, is there any idea about the time where the second half of Moria shall be revamped? Currently I almost feel like finishing the epic quest line, going to Lothlorien and waiting for the second revamping to come back.

[Catisa]

And if Waterworks was revamped ...

I can confirm, the waterworks was most definitely revamped, and WOW what a nice job they did with it too. Was my favorite part of the revamp. You won't get the proper feel for all the changes if you have been there previously and have some quests done. I was lucky and had a toon that was ready to go into Moria for her first time and enjoy the revamp from a fresh perspective (I have 5 other toons already gone through and to cap).

My waterworks highlights:
-The tunnels under the water wheel A+++
-The new quest hub inside Gabil-munz where previously was a 'fake' door A+++
-Quest flow is so much better, especially the great wheel questline
-Expansion and addition of additional Globsnaga areas A+++

For those who questioned having a stable at the vile maw now ... if you have the whole questline to do, it works in very nicely.

I'll post up my thoughts on the other areas revamped later.

[radspakr]

...
However, is there any idea about the time where the second half of Moria shall be revamped? Currently I almost feel like finishing the epic quest line, going to Lothlorien and waiting for the second revamping to come back.

Curious about that myself I basically packed up my LM and ran out of Moria desperate for the light.
Hopefully they'll make the Flaming Deeps a little less confusing to navigate I always end up getting lost and winding up at the same spot.
Foundations could use some work too I was questing there earlier today and just got fed up with Moria (2nd time through) and just moved onto Lorien where I'll squeeze the extra level and a half out of the repeatables until I'm ready for Mirkwood.
I have a third character about to start Moria and I'm hoping the changes will make it a bit faster and easier to level.
I'm already liking the Silvertine update with it being a bit easier to navigate.

[Cereline]

When I heard about the changes I held off on starting Moria on my hunter and am perhaps halfway-ish through the new areas so far. I'd already been dragging my heels on entering because I had so many mixed feelings about the area.

I loved Moria on my first visit (with my warden). I have a folder full of screenshots of the countless places I thought were so lovely and breathtaking I had to pause to take a pic. However, I left all sorts of things unfinished, and for just the reasons that this revamp was done - too much time spent getting lost, killing trash on the way to where I really wanted to be, a quest log that felt huge and overwhelming. I still haven't remembered to go back for the class trait quest in the Foundations of Stone, which I never managed to complete solo at-level - it proved to be frustrating to have to battle my way all the way to the eastern side of the area again and again only to die miserably once there. That's just one example, but the same thing happened with multiple quests: if I had a limited amount of time to play, did I want to spend it killing trash on the way, or would I have more fun killing a few mobs along the way and then completing the quest I want to finish? For me, it's the latter. If there were a reasonable alternative to Moria as a leveling area, then fine, no need to invest dev time on a revamp - but it's not that optional.

I'm not disappointed so far with the changes. Perhaps partway in I'll discover that some quest or subzone I'd really enjoyed is no longer there, but that's not going to break the entire zone for me. I'm really enjoying having a mount - another thing I never got to on my warden (okay, in part because I was too cheap to buy a 5g goat when I could grind out kindred and get one for 6g - except I left Moria before getting kindred, whoops). I'm enjoying not being constantly lost. I'm enjoying not having to go through my quest log and try to figure out what would be within a reasonable run and also wouldn't send me through a million mobs, possibly several levels above my own. I'm looking forward to showing my boyfriend, who I finally just recently convinced to try LotRO (up to level 30ish now), a zone that he can enjoy without getting confused or lost - perhaps for players who've been around for years this doesn't happen, but as a new arrival, 75 levels worth of questing can be daunting enough without facing a mandatory zone in the middle that may or may not be fun to navigate.

More linear questlines are fun for some people and not fun for others. Liking revamps like this one doesn't make someone feeble-minded, a child, or unwilling to take on a challenge, as has been implied or stated in several previous comments. Making something more accessible isn't incompatible with that thing still being fun - or conversely, harder doesn't automatically equate to better.